Racing Victoria must protect horses' welfare over cobalt doping

As Racing Victoria heads into the second week of the cobalt saga, sadly we seem to be missing the most important point – horse welfare.

We have claims that normal supplements can exceed the threshold and that trainers weren't notified properly. Really? Well, we also have massive readings of a heavy metal, cobalt, which has serious side effects and toxicity problems.

Heavy metals such as cobalt cannot be broken down in the body and accumulate over time in the body, exerting cumulative toxic effects.

Sporting administrators have a significant role to ensure that the athletes' welfare is protected – none more than in racing, where the competitors have no voice.

We hope that trainers and stable veterinarians have animal welfare as their first priority.

However, in situations where the competitive edge is pursued so vigorously, welfare can get lost in the mire.

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In recent times, we have seen in the AFL at Essendon where players were injected on multiple occasions with, as yet, "unknown" peptides. These drugs were unregistered and remain unknown, so no one can really tell what the potential health risks to the Essendon players might be.

Racing administrators have a duty of care to protect horse welfare when others may not. Therefore, when there is a belief that there is misuse of a drug or a supplement – setting a threshold is clearly the way to protect the horses.

Furthermore, if the misuse is also reputedly performance enhancement, then the threshold is a double-edged sword.

This has been tested in Australia, in New South Wales, where a harness trainer appealed a long disqualification to a cobalt positive result. The court held that the racing administrators have the right to set a threshold, that the threshold was determined appropriately (in fact it is the same as Racing Victoria's), and in its finding it increased the penalty and lengthened the trainer's disqualification. Another trainer very quickly cancelled his court appeal.

While during this scandal we had heard about cobalt as an EPO-like blood-boosting drug and have heard about it being present in lots of supplements and vitamins - we have not heard about cobalt toxicity.

Furthermore, while cobalt is described as a necessary mineral, there are no reported cases of cobalt deficiency in horses anywhere. Therefore, while it is a vital element, it would seem that the minute amounts required by horses can simply be obtained by grazing. The levels normally present in an unsupplemented horse of around three would seem to be a long way away from Racing Victoria's threshold of 200.

In the 1950s, cobalt was used in human patients with anaemia to treat their blood count – this was abandoned when it was associated with patient deaths.

However, the most striking story about cobalt toxicity relates to a brewery in Quebec, Canada, which added cobalt to its beer to stabilise the beer foam. Subsequently, 50 heavy beer drinkers developed cardiomyopathy, with 20 cases being fatal. When the cobalt additive was stopped, so did the deaths.

In the US, the Thoroughbred Daily News published an article last week on cobalt following news of the positives in Melbourne. The article suggested that cobalt doping was a widespread problem in the US and quoted some of the world's most respected veterinarians.

In California, where there were seven unexplained racehorse deaths in one stable, Dr Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the California Horseracing Board, said: "The bottom line is there's no justification for the use of cobalt at all."

In March 2014, Arthur warned Californian horsemen that the state would begin testing for cobalt.

Dr Dionne Benson, executive director and CEO for the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the industry-backed organisation that develops uniform rules, policies and testing standards, said: "I can't ever dream up these things that people put into horses."

In Kentucky, Dr Mary Scollay, medical director of the Kentucky Horseracing Commission, said: "Some days it's very frustrating. Who would've thought I would be contemplating how anaemia was treated in the 1970s? And yet here I am thinking about it and learning about it. It's not a futile exercise. It opens your mind to other avenues that (cheaters) might contemplate."

Let us not forget that the greatest horse in Australian racing folklore, Phar Lap, died of suspected arsenic toxicity – another heavy metal.

Arsenic was a common ingredient of "tonics" used to stimulate appetites, but had a cumulative effect on the body – like all heavy metals.

So while some want to argue about the validity and introduction of a cobalt threshold, Racing Victoria have got it right when it comes to ensuring that the animal's welfare is protected.